Watching Midnight Cowboy and the poignancy it still resonates with 50 years later is absolutely stunning. It's a film that captures the unrelenting ugliness of the underbelly of the American dream in such a fascinating and yet simplified way that so many contemporary films seem to miss on. Our capitalist culture has never been more ripe for commentary than it is right now and yet somehow no one has ever really quite hit the mark like young Jon Voight as a dishwasher turned male prostitute in a Roy Rogers cowboy getup trying to survive the bitter New York City winter.
Although it's based on a novel, Midnight Cowboy improves upon its source material right out of the gate by cutting down on our central character, Joe Buck, and his time in Texas. The book spends a considerable amount of time establishing Joe's strange upbringing and his underlying sense of loneliness. Instead the film drops us in on his final day in small-town America as he sets off for the big city and we're left to fill in the gaps of his history through a series of vaguely nightmarish flashbacks - calling to the sources of his inflated confidence and his naive, yet narcissistic ambitious attitude that he's destined for greatness. Director John Schlesigner gives the viewer the puzzle pieces and allows you to fill in the gaps, rather than meticulously spelling out the details. In some sense, you can even go further as to summarize Joe Buck's entire origin in the opening frames of the film - where we see a young child pretending to be a cowboy on the deserted playground in front of a drive in movie theater that's playing cowboy movies to an audience of no one. It's a beautiful shot and sets the stage for the journey ahead incredibly well. Joe Buck is stuck in the cowboy age while the turbulent times of 1969 have moved on and left him and his dream behind.
Even though he wasn't the film's first choice, Jon Voight plays Joe Buck absolutely perfectly. His character's undying lust for money could easily make Buck an unlikable protagonist but Voight plays him with such bright eyed optimism and youthful naivety that you can't help but get caught up rooting for his success right alongside him. On the bus ride from Texas to New York, Voight also continues to build on his vulnerability and loneliness with his inability to connect with anyone riding with him. No one knows his grandma and no one cares about cowboys. His great journey gets whittled down, along with his self confidence, as the film goes. And Voight's transformation from the hopeful kid set out to take the world by charge into the embittered cast away, desperate to do anything to survive is incredible.
But what helps round out and ultimately redeem Joe Buck is his relationship with "Ratso" Rizzo, played by Dustin Hoffman. Like Voight, Hoffman was also not the first choice for the film. Coming off of the success of The Graduate, Hoffman was seen as a hopeless romantic lead - not a scuzzy New York conman. The Graduate director Mike Nichols even went so far as to try and talk Hoffman out of taking the role, warning him he was ruining his career and sabotaging the success he'd achieved. And yet Hoffman absolutely knocked it out of the park. He's so deeply immersed in the role that he's hardly recognizable and brings a sense of empathy and compassion to a role that could have been easily written off as a stereotype.
Schlesinger does a phenomenal job of personifying the cold streets of New York City as one of the story's most vibrant and pivotal characters. The long sweeping shots of Voight and Hoffman walking, lost among a see of unknown faces captures the hopeless insignificance Joe Buck has to grapple with as his journey for fame and glory becomes one about mere survival. From the moment Buck takes his first hustle and ends up losing money rather than make any - it leads the viewer along Joe's slow realization that he was merely the big fish in a little pond and he's not quite the stud he's believed he was when he first set out. Raised on Americana Cowboy movies and a coddling grandmother, Buck's been lead to believe as long as he wants it he can achieve it. The good guys always win. But when faced with trying to survive, homeless and hungry on the cold bitter streets of New York City and engaging in a series of encounters where everyone is out for themselves - his goodwill and trust quickly turns into resentment. Joe's desperation and anger finally boils over to a breaking point when Rizzo's health reaches critical conditions and instead of sex, Joe resorts to violence to get enough money to get Rizzo out of New York. But the city uses up and breaks down their bodies to the point that when they can finally escape to a sunny retirement in Florida, it's already too late.
Despite some of the more grizzly details - Midnight Cowboy's portrayal of life in America still holds up on its 50th Anniversary in a way most films from the era can't. It was a revelation at the time of its release, even so undeniably well crafted that the Academy honored it as the first (and only) Best Picture winner with an X-Rating. Granted the rating was later lessened to R due to the initial reasoning of the X-Rating being the homosexual scenes (which is simply implied and hardly shows anything you couldn't see on basic television currently) but nevertheless - Midnight Cowboy is a groundbreaking piece of cinematic history that deserves its place as one of the most revered and celebrated movies of all time. I know it's hard to keep up with infinite waves of entertainment being lapped up on our shores on a daily basis, but this is a film that deserves to be looked back on and held up as the masterpiece that it is.
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